Modular Knitted Throw

Earlier in the year I knitted a modular knitted throw which was predominantly blue and white.  While I was knitting it – I thought that I could knit it in another colour way – using bright or even garish colours.   I have lots of odd balls left over from various projects.

I have made a start on it.  There is no planning – I am just picking the colours for the next square as I go along.  The only 2 “rules” I use – is firstly to spread the colours out across the throw and secondly to use strongly contrasting colours next to each other so that the stripes stand out.  As with the previous version – I intend that every square will be different.

The result so far reminds me of one of the first things I ever knitted – which was a blanket knitted in garter stitch stripes.  I only knitted some of the blocks, my mother, grandmother and aunt knitted the others.  In those days I wouldn’t have believed that I could ever knit a whole throw on my own in a couple of weeks.    I should manage to do it – if I carry on knitting in front of the sport on TV.

Garter Stitch Triangle Wrap by Pat Strong

 

After the complexity of the floral cushion this garter stitch wrap is very easy.  I have knitted it before – at the end of last year.  The last time I actually visited a yarn store was in March 2020 and I bought a couple of skeins of Manos Del Uruguay Alegria in a shade numbered A9741. 

It is 75% superwash merino and 25% polyamide.  There is 425 metres (445 yards) in a skein.  When I bought it – I intended to use both skeins for the same project – but now I have decided to just use one skein for this wrap and use a contrast yarn which is an olive green colour.  I am not sure exactly what this yarn is – I found it in my stash!  I had obviously intended to use it for something else but I can’t remember what.   I have said this pattern is easy and it is – but I think I would find it much harder if I just used one colour because I would get confused about which row I was on.  With 2 colours – you always increase in one colour (so every fourth row) and then the same with the decreases.  This means you can avoid using a row tally.

The only reason that this wrap is not finished yet is because I haven’t been doing much knitting this month so far.  I may get more done now that there is a lot of football on TV. 

Floral Cushion Finally Finished

This week I have finally finished sewing up my floral cushion.  As I said in my last post.  I made a basic cushion cover to sew the flowers onto.  I used 4 shades on the front – but you can’t see them now it is covered in flowers.  It could have been knitted in one colour, but I didn’t have enough of any one of the colours – so using a few different ones seemed the best solution.    The back is completely different.  The basic cushion cover pattern is taken from the book “Finishing Techniques for Hand Knitters” by Jane Crowfoot. 

When I had finished the basic cover, I sewed together the flowers and pinned them on.  I had made 30 but decided that I needed to make 3 more.   I then sewed them on and lastly sewed in the ends.  Just sewing in the ends took a couple of evenings.

I think I am happy with the end result.  It is how I intended it to look.  I handed over to my boss on Tuesday.  I think she liked it.  She said that she couldn’t stop looking at it – so I think that means she did. 

Even before I had handed the cushion over – I had cast on another shawl!  It is easy with no difficult decisions to make.